Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

We have some questions to answer this week. Can England bounce back or can Ireland continue to sneak their improvements and win another one? Scotland, historically, are awful after beating England, can Wales improve enough to beat them or can Scotland find some consistency? Are Italy the best scrummaging side in this championship? Galthié has bulked up his tight five to compete with them, how will that work? The Games England v Ireland This game started very slowly. Both lineouts were bad, England worse than Ireland, and both scrums barely any better. Neither side really had any fluidity in attack and it was a bit hard to tell why at first. As the game developed, it started to become a bit clearer though. Ireland had, mostly, abandoned their attacking structure of the last seven years, with three fairly close carriers in a line and one in the boot, trusting first Murray, then JGP to pick out the right player. But generally they were playing with Crowley flat and players arranged outsi...

Sixmas is here, on a Thursday night to avoid clashing with the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. For every team there are questions, France have left out some big names and Atonio has been forced to retire after a heart attack. Ireland have all new props and a reworked back line, largely thanks to injuries. England are also missing a lot of props. Wales have a reworked squad, again. Italy have too many injuries in places that they’re short of depth. There’s a sense that Scotland have to deliver now or Townsend will be fired. What will the matches reveal? France v Ireland Before the match there was an additional question here, would Dupont and Jalibert manage to work well together. Happily for anyone who isn’t Irish, the answer to that seems to be yes. I would say that about 20-25% of the time when Dupont could have done something, he passed to Jalibert instead, and trusted him to make a decision about what to do. Jalibert, likewise, probably got about 66% of the ball he might expect ...